According to Andre Geim, 2010 Nobel laureate in physics, the world may soon face a technology crisis as we seem to be running out of new discoveries. The article by Mr Game published in Financial Times reads that the technological progress observed over the last forty years was a direct consequence of the Cold War between the USA and the USSR which forced the countries to look for advantages over enemies, so at that time fundamental scientific research was substantially financed. Since there is no acute need for investing in innovation to enhance defence today, governments gradually cut funding of research projects.
“I see a severe crisis in delivering new knowledge. It is not that discoveries no longer occur, but that the rate has slowed. Without new knowledge, only derivative technologies are possible – and, however important, they are incapable of sustaining the sorts of economic growth rates the world has enjoyed since the coming of the industrial revolution,” Mr Gaim thinks.
Andre Geim is certain “there is no such thing as useless fundamental knowledge”, because computers, lasers, mobile phones and internet would have been impossible without quantum physics and abstract maths.
Andre Geim sees the only way for the mankind to prevent a technology crisis — mobilization of efforts ahead of a huge cosmic rock on course to hit Earth. This is the threat that may well spur the world to act, to develop new knowledge and technologies.
